I've sold out • Hacker News Board

Re: I've sold out

#141

Post by Jgrubb » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #92

uxcolumbo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about the factors that determine why one AI coding harness is better than others. Is it system prompts? Or just personal preference in terms of the UX and there isn't actually a better output between using CC or Pi? So what makes Pi better than CC? Is it better than OpenCode?

There's a recentish YouTube talk when he introduces the concept and contrasts against those. My (oversimplified) summary: it's like vim versus an IDE. Good for tinkerers and obsessives who like small, sharp and customisable tools.

> vim versus an IDE is exactly how I describe it to some of my coworkers who are old enough to have used vim.

Re: I've sold out

#142

Post by bossyTeacher » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

colinmarc wrote: post #57

inatreecrown2 wrote: post #41

I read most of the post, went to the linked project and still don't have an idea what this is about.

Pi is a coding agent harness, like Claude Code, but significantly better and more elegant. Here is a good post describing it: https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/1/31/pi/ I switched a few months ago and have not looked back. Unfortunately Anthropic blocked access from Claude Subscription users today, but that's a different story.

> significantly better and more elegant.

Can you please give us concrete reasons that make Pi better than Claude Code for you? And what model are you using for it since Claude is not available.

Re: I've sold out

#143

Post by loveparade » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 1:57 PM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #87

loveparade wrote: post #58

Understandable, I'd probably do the same in his position. Still sucks, we've seen this pattern a thousands times before and what happens next is pretty obvious. I was prototyping something with pi under the hood for a personal project, going to switch off it now.

Like he iterates in the blog post multiple times: It's still MIT licensed, you can fork it to your heart's content. Or keep using the mainline and merge new features to your own fork.

For me the reason to add dependencies to my projects is exactly because they are maintained upstream and I don't need to worry about maintaining them myself. If I need to fork and maintain it myself I'd rather write my own version of it that perfectly fits my use case, or use another dependency that is maintained.

Re: I've sold out

#144

Post by mark_l_watson » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 1:59 PM UTC

girvo wrote: post #64

loveparade wrote: post #58

Understandable, I'd probably do the same in his position. Still sucks, we've seen this pattern a thousands times before and what happens next is pretty obvious. I was prototyping something with pi under the hood for a personal project, going to switch off it now.

> I was prototyping something with pi under the hood for a personal project, going to switch off it now. For what it's worth, it's pretty straightforward to recreate it I found, at least it's base idea. Readline w/ nice output is a bit of a pain, but still, doable, and if you don't care about that part of it, then the overall agent loop that you'd build on top of? You could build it, I promise.

What you are suggesting might sound difficult to some people, it is possible: in the last week I co-wrote (with Antigravity with Claude as the backend) an Emacs package for agentic coding that also just uses ‘rg’ for finding relevant code for the context, call out to a model, and handle creating a diff with merging tools. I love using my own code that provides inside Emacs vibe coding and I would suggest others try building the same thing.

EDIT: here is a link of what I wrote just for my own use: https://github.com/mark-watson/coding-agent

Re: I've sold out

#145

Post by mijoharas » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 2:03 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #36

In light of all the stuff about Thiel and friends, I'd really stay away from Tolkien/Middle-Earth themed startup names for now...

Ooooh. I didn't know palantir was a tolkien thing[0] until just now! Oh god, that was my first guess but thought some more and it turns out that anduril is too[1]. (I was similarly unaware)

Anything else I missed?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palant%C3%ADr

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anduril

Re: I've sold out

#146

Post by mijoharas » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 2:05 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #71

As somebody who considered building with Pi, I think I like this. I can imagine some good coming out of this for the ecosystem. And if they mess it up, it’ll be easy enough to fork.

As a pi fan I'm neutral. Gonna wait and see how it plays out.

I've seen some negative sentiment in this thread which I don't really understand if you read the article.

Re: I've sold out

#147

Post by jmaw » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 2:06 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #117

tasuki wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CC is a steaming pile of vibe-coded bloat. If that rocks your boat, go knock yourself out. Is it better than OpenCode? It's certainly much smaller and doesn't have a client-server architecture - already that is a big win.

OpenCode is pretty terrible imo. Not very privacy minded.

I've been considering playing around with opencode. Can you expand on what you mean by this?

Re: I've sold out

#148

Post by mijoharas » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 2:07 PM UTC

tinyhouse wrote: post #130

Pi is my preferred coding agent and I'm happy it lands in good hands. At this point the only reason to use CC is access to Opus. I think open source will end up winning the coding agents race among developers at least. We just need a 30B size model with Opus like capabilities for coding. Frontier labs will dominate the Desktop / Web.

Why can't you use opus with pi?

Re: I've sold out

#149

Post by rvz » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

kator wrote: post #80

I think it's a bit sad that we often say people "Sold out". Sometimes, I agree, but often, I point out that until the lady at the grocery store stops asking me for money when I walk up to check out, I need to pay my bills to eat. I contribute to open source projects, but none of them to date could support me buying much more than a beer. If one took off such that I could "live" off it, I would be happy to leave my cu…

You are allowed to make money. Do not listen to others who say that you cannot, because they can't themselves.

Re: I've sold out

#150

Post by jcstryker » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

> Fair Source and Enterprise

Yet another bait and switch plays out - build clout on the goodwill of open source and execute the plan at the opportune moment.

I may understand the decision but I sure as hell don't respect it - cashing out and prioritizing your family, a very human thing to do, at a glance it almost even seems noble.